It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the happiest season of all. It’s 21 days (and counting) until Christmas, and you would have to be impressively oblivious  not to notice the sudden abundance of lights and bells and glitter and chocolate and reindeer and snow and ribbons and bows and exams. and..Wait. What?! Exams?

Yup. Exams. The Holiday Season is coming soon, but I would bet that your exams are coming sooner. However, that does not mean that the last few weeks before Winter Break need be all doom and gloom as you agonize over grades and GPA. “Why not?” you ask. Because, drum roll please…

I give you “Produtive Procrastination!“

Productive Procrastination- n. Doing stuff to keep busy while avoiding what really needs doing. When all is said and done, your room is clean, your laundry is folded — but you haven’t started your English paper.

- Urban Dictionary

In the larger context of student life, productive procrastination does not have to be house work (although I did just go grocery shopping, make chocolate covered pretzels, wash my clothes and sheets, and clean my desk).  It can also be intellectually stimulating and ultimately make you a better person.

Example 1: This morning, I spent a good half hour reading through the CLP Teensburg blog. In that time, I (1) made a startling discovery: Fire* by Kristen Cashore is OUT! How did I not know this? (2) did some mental holiday shopping: Thank you Karen for that wonderful list of books! and (3) realized yet again how awesome the Library really is: I really don’t think that I need to explain this one.

*In case you wanted to know more about my morning, I proceeded to spend the next hour or so reading Fire. It is really really really really good, and now I can’t think about anything else, especially not models of organizational decision making or short-term fluctuations in GDP. So let this be a warning: Productive procrastination can lead to chronic inner turmoil (Read. Study. Read. Study. Read… Ahhhh!!!). Please use responsibly.

Example 2: My roommate, who I admire immensely, reads the news as a form of procrastination.

Here is an article to get you started:

• New York Times List of Notable Children’s Books for 2009 Among the titles on the list,Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd, The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan, and Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork.

  by Rick Riordan,

Vast Fields of Ordinary - The summer after graduating from an Iowa high school, eighteen-year-old Dade Hamilton watches his parents’ marriage disintegrate, ends his long-term, secret relationship, comes out of the closet, and savors first love.

The Last Olympian- While the Olympians struggle to contain the rampaging monster Typhon, Kronos begins his advance on New York City, where Mount Olympus stands virtually unguarded. Now it’s up to Percy Jackson and an army of young demigods to stop the Lord of Time.

Marcelo in the Real World - Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.

Happy Holidays!

If you’re anything like me, you do most of your shopping the day before the holiday and end up getting more things for yourself than for your friends and family.  I’ll probably be doing that this year, too — but you don’t have to!  Rather than giving your loved ones things they’ll shove in a closet and never wear, or use once and forget about, why don’t you give them the gift that keeps on giving: BOOKS!!

You can read a book once, and it’ll keep you entertained for a week or so.  You can pass it on to a friend, and it’ll bring them joy, too.  You can add it to your library and read it again and again.

You might not think of giving teen books to your parents or grandparents, but hopefully this guide will give you some suggestions that’ll work for anyone on your list, regardless of age. (Okay, maybe not your one-year-old sister.  I recommend a nice stuffed animal for her.  Or talk to the children’s librarians, they’ll give you some book ideas.)

For Cooks (and those who like to eat):

Teens Cook Dessert / Megan and Jill Carle

From quick treats to impressive sweets, Teens Cook Dessert is a  guide to making delicious desserts-the kinds teens like to make and eat. Sisters Megan and Jill Carle understand what other teens know and don’t know about baking, and they clearly describe and explain everything their peers need to do to produce fabulous results.

For Sci-Fi Geeks:

Little Brother / Corey Doctorow

After being interrogated for days by the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, California, seventeen-year-old Marcus, released into what is now a police state, decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.

Zoe’s Tale / John Scalzi

Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old. Everyone on Earth knows the tale she is part of. But you don’t know her tale: How she did what she did not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too.

For Fantasy Freaks:

Beautiful Creatures / Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl

In a small South Carolina town, where it seems little has changed since the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Ethan is powerfully drawn to Lena, a new classmate with whom he shares a psychic connection and whose family hides a dark secret that may be revealed on her sixteenth birthday.

Fire / Kristin Cashore

In a kingdom called the Dells, Fire is the last human-shaped monster, with unimaginable beauty and the ability to control the minds of those around her. But even with these gifts she cannot escape the strife that overcomes her world.

For those Looking for Love:

Let It Snow / John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle

In three intertwining short stories, several high school couples experience the trials and tribulations along with the joys of romance during a Christmas Eve snowstorm in a small town.

Ransom My Heart / Princess Mia Thermopolis with help from Meg Cabot

Finnula needs money for her sister’s dowry, and fast. Hugo Fitzstephen, returning home to England from the Crusades with saddlebags of jewels, has money, and lots of it. What could be simpler than to kidnap him and hold him for ransom? Well, for starters, Finnula could make the terrible mistake of falling in love with her hostage.

Tearjerkers:

If I Stay / Gayle Forman

While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, seventeen-year-old Mia, a gifted cellist, weights whether to live with her grief or join her family in death.

Living Dead Girl / Elizabeth Scott

She remembers who she was: a little girl with pigtails and pink shoes.  She remembers that she once had a family who loved her.  And she knows that if she makes one false move, the man who’s held her captive for half of her life will kill them all.  **This is very intense.**

For History Buffs:

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party / M.T. Anderson

Young Octavian is being raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers — but it is only after he opens a forbidden door that he learns the hideous nature of their experiments, and his own chilling role in them.

What I Saw and How I Lied/ Judy Blundell

In 1947, with her jovial stepfather Joe back from the war and family life returning to normal, teenaged Evie, smitten by the handsome young ex-GI who seems to have a secret hold on Joe, finds herself caught in a complicated web of lies whose devastating outcome changes her life and that of her family forever.

Need more ideas?

Amazon.com’s Gift Ideas in Books for Teens

Barnes and Nobles has a Holiday Gift Guide

A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy has tips for giving and receiving books as gifts.

Back in July we had a Twilight party.  I made up trivia questions, the teens played a Twilight board game and we had various other activities.  I made a promise to my teens that I am ashamed to say I didn’t keep.

Several years ago a new book came into the library with a pretty black cover with an apple on it.  It was Twilight. I was intrigued and I began reading it.  I stopped after a couple hundred pages.  I thought it was boring.

Imagine my surprise when it became the bestseller and successful movie franchise it is today.

So in July, after the teens had such a good time at our Twilight party, they requested we have a party for New Moon. 

I promised them that I would try to read Twilight again and New Moon.  Maybe there was something I was missing?

There wasn’t.  I was still bored and didn’t get beyond the first couple hundred pages. 

So I put it done and picked up some really good books instead.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

In my opinion, nothing much happens in Twilight,  atleast in the first 250 pages that I read.  The Hunger Games is action packed.  It takes place in Panem in what used to be the North America.  It is now divided into 12 districts around The Capital.  The Capital, as punishment  for the district’s rebellion, draws the names of one boy and one girl from each district to participate in the Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games is a televised event that only one person can win and survive.  It is a fight to the death.  Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 and her younger sister’s name is drawn at the “reaping”.  Katniss volunteers to take her place in the Games.  She must now kill or be killed as she fights in the Hunger Games. 

Raven Summer by David Almond

Liam and his friend hear the call of a raven.  The raven is leading them to something.  Liam and Max follow the bird through town to a field where they find a baby laying on pile of rocks.  There is a note pinned to it and a jar of money.  Liam takes the baby home and a series of events transpires that leads Liam to make friends with Oliver and Crystal, two teens in foster care.  Not exactly action-packed, Raven Summer, it does beg for your attention from the first page to the last. 

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Want to read about star-crossed lovers? Kyra and Joshua must sneak around to be together in the  isolated polygamous community they have grown up in.  Kyra’s father has three wives and she has 20 brothers and sisters. She has always respected her father and her community until the Prophet decides she will marry her 60-year-old uncle who already has six wives.  She begins to question the Prophet and the life she has grown up with.  Especially, since her visits to the bookmobile once a week and her secret meetings with Joshua, a boy she is in love with but cannot have.  How’s that for star-crossed? I could not put this book down.  Kyra’s story is breathtakingly haunting.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Miranda is a sixth grader in 1979.  She is helping her mother prepare to be a contestant on $20,000 pyramid while trying to navigate the social paradigms of middle school.  As she is trying to cope with losing her best friend, Sal, who has decided he no longer wants to be her friend, she finds four letters that change her life.  Who are the letters for and how does the writer know so much? Another book I couldn’t put down, it is remarkably written.  Beautifully crafted and mysterious.

Most schools don’t have the time, resources, or know-how to adequately teach students to use the latest technologies, and that leaves YOU at a disadvantage.

FreshBrain.org is a technology exploration platform for teens that seeks to fill that educational gap. FreshBrain helps you to discover technology through creative activities and projects. Have you ever wanted to write your own Facebook Application, create a video game, or make a YouTube video? FreshBrain has all the information and  tools you’ll need to get the job done!

 The site also offers social networking—you can connect with other teens through blogs, forums, and groups so that you can share ideas and show off your work.

Last, but not least, FreshBrain sponsors several scholarship programs that focus on what you create with technology, instead of on essays or tests. One of these is the FreshBrain Video Book Trailer Scholarship. To compete for a $1000 scholarship and a chance for your creation to be featured on the Random House website, you have to make an original book trailer for the verse novel Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown. The deadline is December 15, 2009. More details here:

http://freshbrain.org/scholarship/freshbrain-video-book-trailer-scholarship

~Eva, CLP-Allegheny

I second that, Tessa.  I am always amazed that I get paid to interact with awesome teenagers!  Thanks so much, everyone, for being you!!!

So, has anyone seen New Moon yet?  Usually, before I spend the extreme amount of money it costs to go see a movie (and get popcorn, because you HAVE to get popcorn), I research the movie, and see what the critics are saying. New Moon’s different, of course.  I’m going to see it, I NEED to see it, regardless of what anyone says.  That said, I still wanted to share a few resources with you, that you can use to hear what people are saying, and just research movies, in general.

Most importantly, metacritic.com, where they average a movie’s score, a “metascore”, from all the popular magazines and newspapers, and you can read the reviews themselves.

You can also use imdb.com to look up movies and actors, and find your favorite quotes.

Then, there’s Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guides, where you can find movie recommendations.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Movie Researching!

It’s Thanksgiving, and I’d like to take this post to thank the teens who come into the library and make our jobs and our days more interesting and fulfilling and challenging.  You make the library a real reflection of Pittsburgh.  Thanks for letting us into your lives.

Thanks also go to the teens who are graduating high school and entering into the armed services.  You are appreciated and your sacrifice is staggering.

Ian Fisher is one of these teens, and his journey from recruitment to deployment was chronicled by Denver Post reporters and photographers for 27 months in this collecton of honest and real photographs.  Click it!  You won’t regret it.  Doubtless you know someone or know of someone who is a soldier or maybe are someone who is thinking of it as a future option.

If you’re looking for some fictional takes on what it means to be involved in war, you can check out our booklist on the Teen site here.

If you are going to take the ASVAB and need practice, we have an online database with practice tests that can be found here.

If you need help crafting a thanksgiving speech for world peace to be given at your dinner table, you may find some good books here.

If you really just need help constructing a historically accurate Thanksgiving Feast, you can find books on Colonial food here.

Or if you are a vegetarian and have to fend for yourself in regards to a main course, please see these offerings.

photo from flickr user dracobotanicus

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!

-Tessa

I don’t watch much tv, but when I do it’s usually Law & Order: SVU (or any other version of Law & Order). But while Stabler and Benson have a badge and a team of forensic scientists to crack the case, all a teen can do is use their wits.

Luckily, books are a safe place to dabble in crime without having to deal with the predators, stalkers, murderers, and other assorted creeps who the detectives on Law & Order deal with on a weekly (or hourly, if there’s a marathon) basis. And there’s even a whole genre of non-fiction, called “true crime,” that can help indulge your fantasies.

True crime features in-depth accounts about and investigations into crimes that took place in the real world. Sometimes they put together their information based on newspaper articles and television stories, and sometimes they go the extra mile to do their own private investigation. And don’t forget: in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

Jacobs, Thomas A.
They Broke the Law, You Be the Judge: True Cases of Teen Crime

They Broke the Law, You Be the Judge offers readers an inside look into the juvenile justice system, from behind the bench and through interviews with the teens themselves. From truancy to auto theft, you’ll be presented with 21 real-life cases and asked what you think the sentence should be. Afterward, you’ll get the real sentence so you can compare your reasoning with the judge’s.

Joyce, Jaimie
Toe Tagged: True Stories from the Morgue

What can dead bodies tell you? Surprisingly, a lot. They can say when the body died, what kind of drugs the were in its system, what the bruises mean, which bullet was the one that killed it, where the body had been in the last 24 hours, and more. This book presents you with cases which used DNA analysis, facial reconstruction, and other tests to figure out the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a slew of awful murders.

Geary, Rick
Treasury of Victorian Murder (series)

A Kansas family murders residents of its inn. An upperclass woman poisons her scandalous lover in Scotland. A woman buries a hatchet into her father and stepmother. What do these stories have in common? They’re all included in a series of graphic non-fiction called The Treasury of Victorian Murder. With pen and ink, Rick Geary recreates some of the most fascinating murders to grace the 19th century.

True Crime: Seventeen, Real Girls, Real-life Stories

Pranks gone terribly wrong, sexual abuse, and murder mark the pages of this page turner of true crime stories compiled by Seventeen magazine. From 14 year-old girls who rob a bank in the hopes of saving their family home to a mom who makes a dangerous decision about her pregnant daughter, this book gives girls a lot to think about.

~Joseph
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Main

Holly’s previous post about the good things that having a library space for teens to go to was awesome and very inspiring.  But just because you’re in the library and off the streets doesn’t mean that the streets can’t come to you, in other awesome and inspiring ways.

I’d like to showcase some of my current favorite street animations and one extremely talented Ukranian teenager, in case you’re somehow bored at the library and have the time to spare:

First, from the artist named blu, we have a wall-painted animation.

I don’t need to remind you that graffiti is vandalism, but it seems like blu cleaned up after his/herself.  Incidentally, there are some books I can recommend on the subject of teen graffiti artists:

Dirty Laundry by Daniel Ehrenhaft: “Carli, a teen actress who has gone undercover at a New England boarding school in order to research a role, hooks up with a student graffiti artist to investigate the disappearance of another of the school’s pupils.”

Zee’s Way by Kristin Butcher: “Zee and his friends are angry that their old haunt has been replaced by stores that are off-limits to them and storekeepers who treat them with distrust. To let the merchants know what he and his friends think, Zee paints graffiti on the wall of the hardware store. After the wall is repainted, Zee decides to repeat the vandalism, but this time with more artistic flair. A store owner catches him in the act and threatens to call the police–unless Zee agrees to repair the damage.”

Trash by Sharon Darrow: “Graffiti artists Sissy Lexie and younger brother Boy try to maintain a sense of family while living in a series of foster homes and staying with their older sister, until a tragic accident forces Sissy to make decisions about her future.”

Graffiti Girl by Kelly Parra: “A Mexican American high school student in a small California town is drawn into the underground world of graffiti art, feeling that it is the only way to express herself artistically and still remain true to her cultural identity.”

Feel weird about writing on walls? Then check out this cardboard animation of weirdly cute bug/monster invaders, done by Sjors Vervoort:

Want to make your own animation?  We have these books to help you:

The Animation Bible: a practical guide to the art of animating, from flipbooks to Flash by Maureen Furniss

Animation unleashed : 100 principles every animator, comic book writer, filmmaker, video artist and game developer should know by Ellen Besen

and more…

And finally, a showstopper: Ukraine’s Got Talent featured a teenager named Kseniya Simonova, who told a story about World War II using only sand and music.  I’ve never watched the American version of this show, but I’m willing to bet it hasn’t featured an insanely talented sand artist.  You must experience it!

Kwame: “You should write about keeping me off the streets.”

Me: “What?”

Kwame: “You know, I stay out of trouble after school because I come to the library. I could go downtown and get into trouble, but instead I come to the library.  It’s good for me.  You guys keep me in line.”

• According to YALSA: “The most dangerous time of the day is from 3 PM to 6 PM. Public libraries provide teens with a constructive place to go during these hours, where teens can organize and participate in supervised recreational and educational activities.”  The hour in which most juvenile crime is committed: 3-4pm. In other words, we keep you off the streets.
• 73% of public libraries reported that they were the only source of free public access to the Internet.   If you use library computers, you are not alone: 60% of teens who use the internet, use public computers to access it. 
• Over 90,000 teen materials  were checked out of Carnegie Library this year already!  Whenever anyone says that teens don’t read, tell them that you do, and when you do, it’s often a library book.
• 6,000 teens attended library programs so far in 2009.  That’s 6,000 teens who chose the library over all other options available, including “risk taking” behaviors.

If you can’t remember all that, just check out these bona-fide teen created Art Club posters that tell you what you need to know about how important access to libraries is for teens in Pittsburgh:

 Hundreds of libraries across the country will be celebrating National Gaming Day this Saturday, November 14, 2009.  The American Library Association (ALA) is sponsoring this event. 

The National Gaming Day programs will include board games, card games, computer games and video games.  Did you know that games have been played in libraries for more than a hundred years? 

The Mt. Washington Branch Library’s National Gaming Day program will be held from 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM on Saturday.  Along with our regular monthly video game program for teens, we will be providing a variety of board games for kids and teens to play. 

So, what is your favorite board game?  Battleship?  Chess?  Clue?  Game of Life?  Pictureka?  Risk?  Scattergories?  Scrabble?  Sorry!?  Uno?  Yahtzee? 

One of my favorite games is Monopoly.   When I was in 8th grade, my friends and I would spend days playing  just one game of Monopoly during the summer. 

Here are some fun facts I found on the official Monopoly web page:

• Over 250 million Monopoly games have been sold worldwide.
• More than 5 billion little green houses have been “built” since 1935.
• The longest Monopoly game in history lasted 70 straight days.  My friends and I only lasted 6 days.
• Parker Brothers once sent an armored car with one million dollars of the Monopoly game money to a marathon game in Pittsburgh that had run out of money.
• The total amount of money in a standard Monopoly game is $15,140.
• The three most landed on properties are Illinois Avenue, “GO” and the B&O Railroad. 
• The character locked behind the bars is called Jake the Jailbird.
• There are 22 properties that can be built on.

marianj